Buddwing

by Evan Hunter

Hardcover.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery

384 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Better known by his pseudonym Ed McBain.

Born Salvatore Albert Lombino, he legally adopted the name Evan Hunter in 1952. While successful and well known as Evan Hunter, he was even better known as Ed McBain, a name he used for most of his crime fiction, beginning in 1956.

Reviews

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to keep reminding myself that Evan Hunter was a pseudonym for Ed McBain because the style and content felt so different. The intersect was that Hunter/McBain both write in the mystery genre. Buddwing was psychological. It begins with a man waking up in Central Park not knowing who he is. Th action takes place in one long day with lots of flashbacks. The protagonist arbitrarily calls himself Buddwing because he doesn't know his name. From the moment he wakes he's in nonstop motion mostly chasing women around, women who remind him of someone in his past.

He someone's of clarity or at least just enough clarity to get him in trouble starting with the telephone number he finds in his pocket. I know New York is often portrayed as an aloof city but it's surprising how many strangers take pity on poor Buddwing. I believe this book was written in the sixties so it's dIsorienting to current readers how far a few dollars stretch on Buddwings lonely vigil. I loved the ending and in no way saw it coming.

Thank you to the publisher for providing an e-copy.

[Tracy P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Evan Hunter/Ed McBain is without a doubt one of my absolute favorite authors of all time.

He often said 'Buddwing' was his proudest accomplishment as an author - I can see why. . .

My personal favorite has always been 'The Blackboard Jungle' - after just finishing 'Buddwing' it's a tie.:) Out of this world!!

Both books are musts for fans of Evan Hunter (and/or any other pseudonyms/pen names he is published under)

#bullseye! 🎯

[Tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story has a shocking ending. It will leave you with nightmare at night. What happening to Buddwing is happening to the university graduates in this 21st century. Master degree that has no value. A future that they worked so hard but was nothing but a dillusion. You will definately hate this book if you love happy ending

[Mandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A man wakes up on a bench in Central Park. He can’t remember anything, not even his name, not even who he is. He spends the next 24 hours on a somewhat mad-cap dash about New York trying to discover someone who might know him, someone who might help him rediscover his identity. Are these people actually from his past? Do they have a connection with him? He certainly strikes lucky with some of the women he meets, of that we are told rather too graphically. Gradually some of his missing past does seem to come into focus but it takes a long time to do so and by then I had rather lost interest. It’s a great premise but a tighter narrative would have had more impact. It certainly takes a little while to work out what’s going on, and even then some of the encounters are too far-fetched. Essentially the problem for me was that I couldn’t engage with Buddwing himself and lost interest in whether he regained his memory or not. Worth reading, though, if only for the period detail about life in New York in the late 1940s.

[Kryptonian Fletch · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've not read an Evan Hunter that I didn't see as a five-star, until now. I WANTED to like this book. I TRIED to like this book. I felt strongly that I SHOULD like this book... But I just could't

[Courtney Stuart · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a perplexing and frenzied book that explores the day of one self-baptised Sam Buddwing, a man who wakes up on a Central Park bench and doesn’t know his name, age, address or place in the world. At first the book follows the theme well as Sam strives to figure out whom he is, knowing instinctively that he belongs to New York City as a native, but not sure where he belongs. In the last third of the book things get really chaotic as we are taken down a pathway of memories and real life like an ice and fruit smoothie in a blender, all mixed up and melded into one another.

The basic premise of the book is a great one. Imagine waking up one day and not having a clue who you are or what you are doing here. Strangely the main character isn’t frightened by the event in so much as he is sure that he can work it out himself if he can just find the right clues. So we travel for the day with this unknown man as he makes contact with strangers around the city and watching his interactions with them. Each step of the way the expectation is that Sam will find someone who recognises him and will be able to fill in the gaps of his knowledge of himself.

This was undoubtedly a racy book of it time, originally published in December of 1964, as several times over the course of the day Sam Buddwing finds himself in extremely intimate situations with strangers. There is even a group sex scene that takes place during the day, although it isn’t as crudely vulgar or lewd as a similar sex scene of today would be written.

There are red herrings thrown in about Sam’s possible identity throughout the book, but it isn’t until the dying moments of the book that the truth of the situation is revealed, although it isn’t clearly delineated and seems to be lost in the chaos of the story, although that may possibly be what the author was striving to achieve.

Confusing. Disordered. Unnerving. Disjointed. Disturbing. If you like novels that are a little bit left of centre, this book is going to be right up your alley. Just don’t expect any happy endings.

[Gabriela · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was constantly toying with my patience and trust that the main character Sam Buddwing would find sooner than later some tangible clues as per his identity. I was really drawn into this book from the very beginning, only to be repeatedly disappointed by the style of writing, by the author refusing to give in a few pertinent clues in the first quarter of the book.

Don't get me wrong, Evan Hunter has a marvelous writing style. In this book, however, th plot is thus constructed as if to baffle and frustrate the reader. At least this is how I felt for a whole week, while refusing to read anything else but this book, only to become (let's put it bluntly) bored out of my wits, which does not happen .. if ever. My mood might have had a lot to do with it too.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book, in exchange for an honest review. I will give another chance to Evan Hunter though and read one more book by him.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to read this book after starting to watch the movie based on it. I read on an online movie page that James Garner, who starred as the main character, thought it was the worst movie he ever made. I decided that a movie about a man waking up one morning in Central Park in New York City with amnesia might not translate well to film and might be better explained in book form. So I stopped the movie after 25 minutes and started reading Ed McBain’s wonderful tome. It is about the nature of identity, what is really important in life, and how everyone changes over their lifetime. I was enthralled and couldn’t wait to find out all about the “mystery man”. The edition I read was published in 1964 was released under the name Evan Hunter. It is a fascinating, often gritty tale, that is somewhat of its time, but still relevant to today’s readers. After all, life’s really big questions remain the same for everyone.

[Norman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended by a friend, I was intrigued. He lists it as his Number One book! I found the premise intriguing - "who am I? how did I get here? " - but after the first few meetings with people I wondered what the denouement would be and to be honest, I don't care really.
The joy is in the writing and how Buddwing's internal monologue drives us to wonder if we will ever learn who he is. The flashbacks he DOES remember tell us about him and then these memories blur with the present meetings.
There are some interesting characters along the way: muggers, a sailor, a rich women who loves scavenger hunts, but his intimate relationships show him to be who he is. And I didn't like him.
But this is an interesting, if dated, read. Now maybe I ought to read some Ed McBain's to compare

[Steve Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

In kind of a departure for this great novelist, Biddwing, is a very surreal almost psychedelic read. I found it to be somewhat disturbing because personally I'm in a strange unsettling time of life and don't really know who I am either or what the years of backstory of my life, and relationships, really mean to me, if anything.
I'm also away from dear NYC right now, for the past month and I miss it very much. The book offers a good tour of the great city all though the day in the life in the book.
Love Evan Hunter's work. I only began reading him a couple of years ago starting with Last Summer.

[BLRBrazil · Rating 1 out of 5]

The initial premise, of someone waking up on a park bench not knowing who they are and with no wallet, watch, money or anything to identify them, is a very interesting one that offered huge potential. However, having accompanied the character's evolving confusion it then appeared that the author became similarly lost and then so did I, and after a while I really stopped caring, as the main character seems far too unhinged emotionally to generate much sympathy. I only continued reading just to finish the book, but with no great hope that it was actually going anywhere and the denouement, while delivering an explanation, doesn't really come as a surprise.
This may be considered something of a spoiler, but I think that to appreciate this book one needs to know from the start that the character has undergone a severe trauma, so as not to be thrown off along misleading thought paths by the insanity red-herring.